Don't Ever Forget
by Rednih
Summary: The past was alive only so long as people cared to remember it. Once they forgot to care, it was like having a blank slate. CFMWH One-shot, Lucas POV.


Lex often told them stories about people long dead. History, is what it was called. Personally, Lucas couldn't see the appeal, but Lex seemed to enjoy it. The past was alive only so long as people cared to remember it. Once they forgot to care, it was like having a blank slate.

With these people, he thought to himself, he had a blank slate. Every time he went to that café in the center of the town, no one saw his history. No matter how long he talked to anyone in Smallville, or at the Plant, his past never came back to life.

In the Beanery once, one brave young girl asked him what he was doing living in Lionel's castle. He'd thought that perhaps he should lie, or manipulate her into a different conversation, but he hadn't.

"I enjoy it," he confided to her. "That's why I stay."

She wrinkled her face at him, much like one of the Lady's dogs at the farm, and turned her confused expression to a boy standing just beside her.

"Are you related to the Luthors?" the boy asked abruptly.

Again, maybe the truth wasn't the wisest or best course of action, but he couldn't see the harm right away. It wasn't there by itself. People might put it there later, but then again. . . they might not.

He was tired of worrying about what might happen. If the past could die, then, he thought with a smile, why couldn't certain futures?

All futures in which they were pawns, where he and his brothers cowered and obeyed, all of these he could deny with the truth.

"I'm their brother," Lucas said. "Well, half-brother, I suppose, would be the correct designation." The girl's eyes widened comically, like a cartoon character's, but the boy just scowled and sneered at him.

"Figures," he mumbled before turning his back on them and walking away.

Lucas looked down at the girl with a forgiving smile and her nervousness seemed to disappear as she returned it.

"Could I interview you sometime?" she asked. Her cheeks turned red, then, and she ducked her head down to look at her feet for a moment. "I mean," she said, meeting his eyes again steadily, "I'm the editor of our school paper, and it would be an honor if I could ask you some questions."

She smiled hopefully.

"And perhaps I could give you some answers to those questions?" he teased. She laughed and shifted her body towards him, and he felt real for a second.

With that pretty girl's focus solely on him in that moment, he fit in. He was like everyone else. He glanced around quickly, savoring the experience of belonging. When he dared to act like Lex, the response was _always_ positive.

"That's just fine with me," he told her honestly. He leaned closer to her, though, and dropped his voice low for her ears alone. "You can ask anything you want, but I can't say I'll answer everything you ask." But like a good person, her eyes grew a little wet and she nodded understandingly.

"Oh, of course," she assured him. "I won't ask anything too, uh, personal." She gave a little shrug, and Lucas smiled at her again.

"And just who is interviewing me?" he asked her. "I don't even know your name."

"Oh! Chloe," she exclaimed, those cheeks flaring again. "I'm Chloe Sullivan."

"Gabe's daughter, Chloe," he clarified, the similarities now painfully obvious. She smiled a little, but it was embarrassed, and it made him think of little Lian for some reason. "I'm Lucas," he said, holding out his hand to make it official and proper. "Dunleavy."

Chloe took his hand eagerly, squeezing hard and shaking aggressively. She stared right into his eyes the whole time, too, and Lucas knew she'd be around for awhile.

He knew it like he knew so many things. He knew in the same way he knew Julian was going to be taller than both Lex and himself, that Lin was going to go back to outer space someday, that Bruce wouldn't be alone with Alfred in that manor of theirs for very much longer.

Chloe Sullivan would play her part, just as he and Lex and Lian all would, like Bruce and Diana and J'onn would someday too.

Someday, because Lucas' history was dead and buried, but Lin's never even moved out from his shadow.


End file.
